Examining the gender-gap in STEM-field career expectations among 15-year-old students

The gender-gap in graduation rates in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) continuous to puzzle social scientists and policymakers, as women are still underrepresented in these fields. A further puzzle exists in the relationship between graduation rates and a country’s ability to ensure equal opportunities for men and women, where an increase in the gender-equality gap index is associated with fewer women graduating in STEM-fields. This paper sets out to investigate whether a similar relationship can be found in the career-expectations of 15-year-old students using data from Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) 2015-survey. The research focuses on postmaterialism as the predictor, and how post-materialistic societies promote values that will manifest themselves in micro-level behavior. A Cross-level moderated mediation analysis shows that students in post-materialistic societies who have reading as their personal best subject are less likely to expect a STEM-field career. The research also shows that the increasing gender-gap in more post-materialistic countries cannot be ascribed to differences in science-abilities or efficacy in science between boys and girls.